


Cheshire's Coffee and Teas

by KiratheCarrionite



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And Growing Up, Existential Angst, Gen, Humor, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Moving On, Romance, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 10:09:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2688911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiratheCarrionite/pseuds/KiratheCarrionite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A not-quite-coffee shop-au set post Deathly Hallows. Harry Potter and Severus Snape meet again in a muggle coffee shop. Snape is supposed to be dead. Harry is supposed to be a photogenic hero and move on to have lots of photogenic hero babies. Instead, Harry settles into work as part-time baker and full-time Snape-annoyer at Cheshire's Coffee and Teas. And hopes he can find out how Snape came back from the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cheshire's Coffee and Teas

**Author's Note:**

> This is set fairly soon post Deathly Hallows. I will say up front that I tend to play fast and loose with cannon, and that it's been years since I finished the books. But that's what AU's are for, right?

When the war ended, Harry expected that he’d feel... triumphant. And you know, he did. A sort of blank triumph, as he had wandered the castle and been grinned at and heard shocky laughs and endured slaps on the back and quiet looks of awe. He’d felt it then. Surrounded by all those people, he’d felt so relieved. It was over.

It was over.

\------

After all the people had gone, it wasn’t quite the same. Fred was dead. Dumbledore was dead. Tonks dead. Remus dead. His parents were still dead. Even Snape was dead. 

Ginny was grieving. Harry looked at her, when they were sitting across from each other at the Weasley table. He held her, when she reached for him. He listened to the quiet, when he passed by her bedroom door. He wished she would cry. It would make things easier. He would feel less empty then. Maybe.

He couldn’t look at Ron. He’d thought that maybe Ron had felt this quiet blankness that smothered Harry when he stopped to breathe. Ron had certainly been quiet enough when they had returned to the Weasley’s home, in the aftermath. He hadn’t said a thing. 

But then he’d exploded. He raged, at the smallest thing. He went still, and then he blew up. It seemed to Harry that Ron was also grieving. Brothers dead, or turned traitor. Family traumatized. Personal belongings destroyed. Ronald Weasley was enraged at the world.

Harry was the empty one.

\------

Harry surveyed the coffee shop as he walked through the door. The sign out front had been sort of dingy and faded, and he’d thought that maybe this would be a quiet place. It was empty enough of customers at four in the afternoon to support that thought. There was one scarfed man with metal-framed glasses in the corner lazily typing at a laptop.

Harry approached the counter and scanned for the barista. There was someone crouched in front of a cabinet at the far end, taking containers out and putting them back, muttering. Harry waited, and considered clearing his throat. The figure snorted and stood up, slowly. Harry swore he could hear joints crack as the man turned. 

It took Harry a second, because the hair was different and this man was wearing a turtleneck and a blue apron. The apron had a picture of the cheshire cat on the right breast. The sign out front had said “Cheshire’s.”

Harry was looking at a dead man.

“Professor Snape?”

\------

Snape, briefly, looked haunted. As if Harry were the ghost. Then his eyes narrowed, and he said, very firmly,

“My name is Alan.”

“Uh.”

Harry hadn’t thought very much past that first statement. Question. He blinked. Snape glared. 

“Would you like to make an order?”

Harry felt the room chill. 

“Yes. A… coffee,” he said. He almost winced. 

“What kind,” Snape said, freezing the air even further.

“A latte,” Harry said. He couldn’t look away from Snape’s face. The hair was different, shorter, choppier. Lighter. The face was the same. Harry could feel the burn of that sneer, and he felt again the injustice of it being aimed at him for the thousandth time since he was eleven.

It was Snape.

“A latte,” Snape said, clearing indicating the ruin he felt Harry was making of his life. He did it without moving his face at all.

“With peppermint mocha,” Harry added. Then he blinked again, because he didn’t even like sweet coffee. He just couldn’t stop staring up at that familiar look of contempt. Snape merely stiffened and turned away to the gleaming espresso machine.

Snape didn’t say anything, just efficiently packed grounds into the little thing that went into the monster of a machine and then went about steaming milk and pumping syrup. He didn’t say anything, and he just kept standing there being alive, and he didn’t say anything. 

Snape pushed the offending to-go cup across the pristine counter and simply dared Harry to take it and leave. Harry just didn’t know how he managed that without moving his facial muscles at all.

Harry felt himself reach for his wallet and say, “I’d like a muffin, please. For here.”

Snape’s nostrils flared. Harry felt an obscure yet piercing sense of satisfaction. As if he’d won something he hadn’t known he’d been playing for.

Snape took a blueberry muffin out of the display and placed it in a small paper bag. Harry almost opened his mouth. Then, because Snape was a perverse bastard, put the bag on a white china plate. For here.

He pushed the plate across the counter with just his fingertips. Harry watched his hand move, whole and pale, and suddenly felt like he’d jumped into some sort of dark water. Like he was drowning and running out of air.

Snape turned away.

“Wait,” Harry said, holding his wallet in front of him. Snape turned back, halfway. Expressionless.

“Take it,” he said. And go, he didn’t say.

Why are you alive? Harry didn’t say. He looked away from Snape’s cold face and saw a piece of white printer paper taped to the front of the counter, below waist level. It had a picture of a purple cat and black typeface.

‘Help Wanted.’

“I’m looking for a job,” Harry heard himself say, from far away.

Snape’s nostrils flared, and the skin around his mouth went pale across compressed lips. Harry felt again a sense of sharp satisfaction.

“It’s only for part time,” said a voice. A woman with dark curly hair pulled back in a bandana stood in a doorway at the other end of the counter. She gave Snape a short look, and Snape gave one to the espresso machine.

“That’s good. I’m looking for part time,” Harry said.

“Can you work the machine?” the woman asked, nodding at the appliance Snape was dissecting with his eyes.

“I can learn,” Harry said. She didn’t look impressed. “I can bake.”

Snape shot him a glare of clear disbelief, then took a neatly folded towel from beside the gleaming machine and began polishing.

“I can,” Harry said. He’d spent a lot of time the past year hiding in Molly Weasley’s kitchen. He could mix things up and put them in the oven and pretend he was busy. The woman looked thoughtful.

“We’ve been buying shitty grocery store muffins and charging two dollars apiece so that I can throw them out. Alan and I can’t bake worth shit,” she said. She grinned and stepped forward. “I’m Mandy. If you want to come in the back and bake me some, we can start talking about hours and pay.”

Snape inhaled sharply, refolded the dry towel, and walked stiffly past Mandy through the doorway.

“I’d love to.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress, and I promise no regular schedule or any particular structure. You'll be getting updates pretty much directly after they come out of my brain.
> 
> Comments feed the authorbeast. And cookies. Tell you what, I'll bring the cookies, you bring the comments.


End file.
